US Ambassador to South Korea Sung Kim has finally been reunited with his family eight months after taking up his post at the US Embassy in Seoul in November.
“I am so delighted that my family has finally been able to join me here in Seoul,” Kim wrote in his blog on July 9. “Being a ‘gireogi’ [goose] father was much tougher than I had imagined, so I am extremely happy that experience has come to an end.”
“Gireogi” is a Korean term used to describe fathers who work in country while their families live abroad for the sake of the children’s education.
Kim’s wife and two daughters — who are in high school and junior high — had remained in the US to finish up their school years. Now all three are in Seoul, along with the family’s Havanese dog Tobi.
“My wife grew up in Seoul and has strong ties here,” reads Kim’s blog. “She is really looking forward to catching up with her parents, family and friends.”
Kim’s wife Jae is a graduate of Ewha Womans University, Korea’s most prestigious women’s university. His older daughter will work as a summer intern at an online publication. His younger daughter plans to take ballet and tennis lessons over the summer.
Kim, 51, is the first Korean American to serve as US Ambassador to Korea since the two nations established diplomatic relations in 1882. Kim was confirmed as ambassador on June 6, 2011. His high-profile diplomatic career began with his involvement with North Korean affairs after being appointed chief of political-military affairs at the US Embassy in Seoul in 2003. As special envoy he has visited North Korea a dozen times and attended most of the six-party nuclear talks.
Kim is fluent in Korean but has always spoken English in negotiations with North Korea. He gained a reputation for firmness in those talks.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Loyola University Law School Kim worked as a prosecutor for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office before joining the State Department.
Sung Kim was born in Seoul in 1960 and moved to the US in 1973 after his father, a diplomat at the Korean Embassy in Tokyo, retired from public service in the wake of his involvement in the kidnapping of the then opposition leader Kim Dae-jung. Sung became a US citizen in 1980. He was close to his father whom he nursed for a year when he had lung cancer in 1993, taking a one-year leave of absence from the State Department. The elder Kim died a year later.
Kim’s father had been one of the people aboard a light plane from Busan to Seoul when it was hijacked to North Korea in 1958 by an unidentified man. He was released after 20 days.
Kim has other famous family ties in S. Korea. His uncle is former anchorman Yim Taek-geun. His cousins are singer Yim Jae-beum and actor and singer Son Ji-chang.
Some in Korea were disappointed by Kim’s appointment as US envoy. Seoul had hoped for an ambassador with political stature rather than a career diplomat as a sign of S. Korea’s higher status among US allies. Kim’s predecessor was Kathleen Stephens, a career diplomat.
